


They said love was just a myth

by dwellingondreams



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Beach Holidays, Beach Volleyball, Day At The Beach, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Love Confessions, Ocean, One Shot, Prompt Fill, Romantic Fluff, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27065065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwellingondreams/pseuds/dwellingondreams
Summary: For example, they’ve planned this beach outing for two weeks now, just the two of them, but it quickly became apparent that the secret was not going to stay one for long, because Holly mentioned it to Tina, and he mentioned it to Adam, and then it gradually morphed into less of a two-person date, more of a group affair, and he should be annoyed, and maybe is a little irritated, but for some reason the shared sense of exasperation as he and Holly exchange looks and occasionally brush knuckles in the backseat of the SUV, is just as intimate as if they were alone in her tiny hatchback listening to the crackle of the radio.(In which Nate and his favorite detective take a beach holiday.)
Relationships: Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell, Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	They said love was just a myth

**Author's Note:**

> Nate may or may not be scared of not just boats but the ocean itself, I'm not sure, but for the purposes of this fic... he's working on that fear! Also for the purposes of this fic: Tina knows what's up with Unit Bravo and keeps making 'Twilight fanfic' jokes behind their backs to Holly.

Nate realizes that he is irrevocably in love with her approximately eighty two days into their relationship. He only allows himself to consider the moment of their first date onwards as the duration of the relationship because he is trying very much to be reasonable about this, and it is unreasonable and perhaps alarming to conceive of a relationship as having started from the moment they made eye contact. He suspects if he told Holly this she would just be bemused, or tease him about it in private moments, but he wants very much to be what she needs, and he does not think what she needs is a walking, talking datebook reminding her of exactly how long it’s been since he allowed himself to think of her as in any way his. 

Degrading the feelings he has to her as those of possessive lust or compulsive need seems inherently small and petty. Holly is not an object in his possession to be carefully examined and fondly arranged, and she is not an illicit substance he has an addiction to. If he were forced to assume any one metaphor, which again seems reductive and unnecessary, he would liken the experience of falling in love with her as that of being enamored with a new faith or worldview. But even that seems to have a sinister undertone to it. 

He does not feel indoctrinated or reborn as a new man, he feels- he feels that while she is not his sole reason for being, she has quickly become one of the most cherished ones. How many times has he told Adam that life is nothing without attachments, personal bonds, love and affection and camaraderie. Unit Bravo is his family. They are intrinsically bound by a shared experience and lived existence as being perpetually in one another’s orbits. He cannot imagine his life without any of them, cannot imagine he would enjoy days devoid of Adam’s dry wit and Morgan’s fierce loyalty and Farah’s playful curiosity. Were he to lose any of them he would mourn and rage as though he’d lost a brother or sister, as if some sort of ancient and primal connection had been severed. 

But Holly-

He realizes now that he regards their bond as he might a living myth, with almost incredulous disbelief at times, that he has- that some sort of push or pull of the universe just so happened to land her in his path, and him in hers, and beyond the coincidence of meeting, that she should be so drawn to him as he is to her. He likens it to a religion because there is a level of engagement required to further the connection. He did not love Holly from the moment he saw her. He was attracted to her the moment he saw her, and the surface level of attraction quickly deepened to a profound intrigue and warmth the more time he spent in her presence, and from there to an abiding sense of friendship and affection, and beyond that-

Beyond that, by day eighty two, he is certain she does not just give him joy and pleasure but a sense of purpose, in that he enjoys the work of being with her, the same way an adherent to a faith might take pride and happiness in the mundane, everyday work of attending to their faith- kneeling or fasting or dressing a certain way or reading certain stories or singing certain hymns. Not every day can be a holy day, no more than every day with Holly could be one full of passion and excitement, but even on the ‘ordinary’ days he cannot ever say he’s felt bored or resentful or even impatient in her company.

For example, they’ve planned this beach outing for two weeks now, just the two of them, but it quickly became apparent that the secret was not going to stay one for long, because Holly mentioned it to Tina, and he mentioned it to Adam, and then it gradually morphed into less of a two-person date, more of a group affair, and he should be annoyed, and maybe is a little irritated, but for some reason the shared sense of exasperation as he and Holly exchange looks and occasionally brush knuckles in the backseat of the SUV, is just as intimate as if they were alone in her tiny hatchback listening to the crackle of the radio.

As it stands, Adam is driving like an old woman, according to Tina’s criticism, Farah is cackling whenever he drives even slower in response to this heckling, while kicking the back of his seat like a child, and despite Morgan’s insistence that she had no intention of coming along, not only did she willingly get up from her usual midday nap to voluntarily put herself in the vehicle, she has proceeded to fall back asleep, her head lolling against the warm window flooded with afternoon sunshine, a pair of Farah’s neon purple sunglasses shoved atop her head. 

“Sorry,” Holly murmurs to him, from their position in the very back, weighed down with bags and baskets and a volleyball Adam claims he didn’t pack, despite Nate seeing him steal it from the warehouse’s gym facility yesterday, “I should have kept my mouth shut. I didn’t realize it was going to turn into..." she gestures vaguely to the somewhat chaotic and cluttered surroundings. Tina is now on the phone with her mother, chatting loudly, while Adam looks as though he’s debating driving the SUV off the winding cliffside road with all of them in it. Albeit, most of them would survive that crash, easily. 

“Don’t apologize,” he says, “it’ll be good for everyone to get out. This past week was very busy for all of us, I’m sure.”

Holly huffs, although a smile plays on her lips. He can smell her honey lip balm from his seat beside her, and the temptation to kiss it off is very strong. “We were busy dealing with an angry forest spirit turning people into trees. Tina… was busy patrolling the fireworks show in the park. Where the only criminal activity was some teenagers smoking weed behind the restrooms.”

“I can multitask, you know!” Tina calls back, apparently off the phone now. Nate is always vaguely uneasy with how quickly most humans- well, most people- can engage and disengage from their devices. It’s a struggle for him just to unlock the things. It never seems to recognize his fingerprint and Holly has been joking about purchasing him a ‘simple’ flip phone for Christmas, which Farah of course found hilarious, even though she’s spent far less time in the human world than he, and really ought to be the one struggling to keep up with the times. 

“And I can hear every word you’re saying,” Tina continues, craning around in her seat to glare at Holly, who adopts an innocent look. “My, my my… how power corrupts, Detective! Six months into the promotion and you’re too good for firework patrols in the park! You know, I was dealing with people turning into trees too, in a sense!”

Morgan, having woken up as Adam puts the SUV in park, snorts a laugh. Tina grins and reaches back for a high five, which goes ignored, until Farah enthusiastically slaps her palm, the bracelets on her wrist jangling. 

“Someone else is driving on the way back,” Adam announces, opening his door. “Preferably not Farah.”

“First of all,” Farah mutters, “how dare you. Second of all-,”

Holly hands her the volleyball, while shoving a large tote bag into Morgan’s unwilling arms. 

“Why do I have to carry this crap?” 

“Because that crap includes our umbrella, so unless you’d prefer to sit out in the sun and cook...” Holly shrugs, and Morgan suddenly seems much more willing. 

They form an odd herd moving onto the beach, which is mercifully mostly deserted except for an older couple walking along the shoreline and one family picnicking near the dunes.

“That’s because we picked the smaller, cruddier one,” Tina comments. “All the townies and tourists are at the bigger one ten miles down the coast, because it’s got the boardwalk.”

“I wanted to see the boardwalk,” Farah complains, then stops in delight. “Look! There’s a dog!” 

A Labrador is frolicking in the surf, pursued by its owner, frisbee in hand. 

“Wow,” Morgan mutters. “What a discovery.”

Adam has already selected what he seems to judge to be the optimal spot for proximity to the water, relative shade from the sun, and distance from the other visitors, and approaches Morgan for the umbrella to stake their claim. She dodges around him, grinning, and all but vaults it into the earth like a spear, sending up a small cloud of sand. The elderly couple passing by stare, and Tina exhales gustily. “You show that sand, Morgs!”

“Nope,” Morgan says, “we’re not doing nicknames.”

“Aw, come on-,”

“Unless you want to be called Teeny? Or Bobblehead?”

Holly nudges Nate with her elbow. “Let’s set up the chairs before she ‘accidentally’ breaks one in half.” He readily agrees.

Once their small site has been erected, it immediately becomes evident who plans on doing what. 

Adam sits down, fully dressed, albeit in a white tee-shirt and a pair of shorts for once, and takes out a book. Tina looks on wonderingly, then shrugs off her wrap and steps out of her sandals, doing a little shimmy when Farah hoots appreciatively. Morgan lies down on a towel under the umbrella, hair constrained to a short ponytail, folds her arms behind her head, and seems to be making a valiant effort to go right back to sleep, just in a brand new location. Farah sits down to sift through the sand, letting it drizzle over the bare skin of her legs, where the dark brown of her skin contrasts with the bright white of her shorts, and triumphantly holds up a tiny shell to show Adam, who leans over to inspect it, not unwillingly. 

Nate glances back over at Holly, and finds her tugging off her sundress, which ties at the neck, to reveal her cherry-patterned bikini. Nate often finds himself tragically out of touch, but hasn’t been living under a rock for the past three hundred years, and knows what women wear as bathing costumes. What he had not prepared himself for was the sight of Holly wearing one. It seems a little absurd when he’s seen her naked many times, but as she adjusts her messy bun of black hair and smiles up at him, a hand on her hip, he finds his mouth incredibly dry and his own amount of clothing incredibly useless. 

Luckily, Farah is too preoccupied sorting through her growing collections of shells, twigs, and beach glass to tease them, but Morgan eyes them through half-lidded grey eyes with a crooked sort of knowing grin. In retaliation, Holly pushes some sand onto her towel with a bare foot. Morgan scowls and shuts her eyes, turning over on her side like a child. Nate has no idea how she’s tolerated wearing combat boots in this weather, but he supposes if anyone could pull it off, it would be her. 

“You’re wearing sunscreen, right?” Holly presses once he’s down to his swimming trunks, shifting from foot to foot. 

“Yes.” He glances down at the tawny brown of his skin, compared to her lighter golden hue. He didn’t realize she tanned so much in the summer, but he quite likes it. It brings out the warmth of her dark eyes, and contrasts beautifully with her hair. “I don’t think there’s any danger of me bursting into flames before we reach the water.”

“Well, even if you did, we could put you out right away.”

He huffs a laugh as she smirks; she comes across as far more reserved than the bubbly Tina, at first glance, but by now he knows well enough she just prefers to wait until the iron is hot to get in her comments. “Just for that, I may have to dunk you.”

They’ve been swimming together once before, actually, in a facility pool that was technically meant to be closed after recreational hours were over, but in that scenario they were both fully clothed to begin with, and then quite rapidly wearing none at all. Her eyes widen, and she backs away, pressing her lips together firmly. “You wouldn’t dare, Agent Sewell. Adam, as his commanding agent-,”

“I’m off duty,” Adam says, without looking up as he turns a page of his book, and, inexplicably, takes a sip of the hard lemonade he seems to have smuggled in with him. Wonders never cease. Maybe he is deciding to take the rare vacation day after all. 

Nate grins. “I knew I could count on your support.”

“Your quarry’s escaping,” Adam intones. 

Holly is making a break for the waves, shouting to Tina, who is already splashing around. 

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, lover boy,” Morgan murmurs drowsily. 

Farah guffaws; she now appears to be creating the foundations of a sand castle.

Nate breaks into a dead sprint; he hasn’t run just to run in a while; not for training, not in the field, just for the feeling of the wind in his face- and reaches the surf a few scant seconds after Holly wades in, gasping at the cold as the water rushes up around her waist. “It’s too cold for you!” she calls to him. “You’ll hate it!” By now she knows how he likes his showers; scalding, and when she tried to slip into one with him last month immediately shrieked and would have darted back out had he not intervened. In the process, they both got a little banged up slipping around in the stall, and he didn’t fully wash the shampoo out of his hair, but he’d say it was still an incredibly enriching experience, because he had no idea the sort of things you could do with the proper amount of-

He backs up half a pace, then gets another running start, submerging himself as soon as the icy water hits his stomach. When he pops back up, she’s also gone even further in, now up to her shoulders, swimming with Tina. Nate wades deeper, until he’s far enough in to properly dive down, and does so, easily transitioning into a breast stroke that takes him out far enough from their squabbling and laughter so that he can pop back up and float on his back. If he closes his eyes, listening only to the distant chatter and the cries of the gulls, he could be very, very young again, several lifetimes ago, feeling the sun heat his wet face and the water tug gently at his trunks, eddying around him. 

He doesn’t know how long he floats like that, until he hears someone surface near him with a sigh, and opens his eyes to see Tina back in the shallows, throwing a frisbee to the Labrador and his sporty looking owner in a surfing shirt. “Cute dog,” Holly explains, and with muffled mirth, “cuter owner.”

Nate squints. “Cute,” he agrees, and rolls over in the water, chuckling at the wake he sends splashing up against her chest. Her hair is still mostly dry, but her face is wet, and her mascara is running a little. She notices him looking, and wipes at it, frowning. 

“I thought this was supposed to be waterproof.”

“You look amazing.”

She rolls her eyes, but grabs onto his arm, her toes pressing against his shin for a moment, before she propels herself off him like a springboard and twists around, a flash of cherry red and golden skin and dark hair, before surfacing again. “And now I look like a hag.” A lock is falling across her eyes. Bedraggled and soaking wet and mascara forming a sooty outline around her eyes, he thinks she has never looked more beautiful.

“Come here,” he says.

So willingly, she swims over to him. Sometimes her sheer trust in him takes his breath away. It’s not a sense of smug triumph, or a feeling that he’s somehow tricked or manipulated her or ‘won out’ against her better judgement, but that… He doesn’t know. It just seems to him, sometimes, that she could have her pick of men or women, and that she’s chosen him, of all people- After what she went through, with Murphy, he thought- well, he feared- that she would pull away. Permanently. That after all her knowledge from the Agency and the blood tests and the trappers and the… the everything about this life, that it would all be marks against him, silent urges for her to, at least, if she could not escape it in the rest of her daily life, at least not choose to devote herself to a… a relationship with someone who was a walking representation of all of that.

Nate doesn’t hate himself, and he doesn’t hate what he is. He feels privileged, honored to have this chance, to do some good, to make a difference with the time he’s been granted. But if- if he were her, human, with a place in the human world, would he have made the same decision so easily, with no apparent hesitation or regret? She’s grasping his hands now, looking up at him with such ease and familiarity, letting the waves rock them closer together. After the first time they made love she slept in his arms as if they’d done it a thousand times before and it were the most natural thing to her, as if it were simply part of an established routine. He hadn’t expected her to flee shrieking in horror, overcome with regret, but he had not been expecting that casual assurance that she would not leave, might really never want to leave.

Eighty two days, he reminds himself, sharply. A blink of an eye for him, and not much more for her. He would never want to pressure her into any grand statement or gesture. Just having her close is enough. But he does love her. He loves her and feels an overwhelming desire to proselytize about it, to somehow affirm it deep within his chest, this warm sensation, like a pleasant sort of burning, buzzing in euphoria under his skin. I love you, he thinks. I love you, I love you, I have never loved anyone as I do you, and that is what makes this mythic.

Instead he says, “Do you want to touch the bottom?”

She glances down into the depths. They’re far enough out now to be near the warning buoy marking the end of the safe swimming zone. The lifeguard on duty is probably watching them on alert for foolish tourists who might be swept out to sea. 

“Are you sure?” she asks, as if she can sense his nerves, though they are for once more excited than anxious at the thought of the waves closing above his head.

“Yes,” he kisses her brow. 

“Alright.” She moves closer, wrapping herself around him, he inhales quickly, and they sink, plummet, really, and the light dulls to a dim distant gleam, shimmering above them, and his feet touch the ocean floor. Her eyes are tightly shut, even though he knows her contacts are waterproof, and she locks her arms tightly around him and presses her face to his chest, a swarm of bubbles colliding with his skin, nodding. He lets his feet dig into the muck and weeds for a little longer, then propels them back up, faster than any human could, and they break the surface again before her heart race can begin to accelerate from lack of oxygen.

“You didn’t look,” he says, as they paddle back towards the shore.

“I didn’t need to,” she mops back her bangs from her face. “I was holding onto you.”

Back on the beach Tina is gloating over the new number she’s acquired, while Farah’s sand castle is beginning to resemble a sand fortress, moat and all. Adam’s abandoned his book and his comfortable chair to kneel on the ground next to Farah, their difference in sizes comically pronounced, like a lion crouched next to a spaniel. He appears to be making a flag to stick in one of the carefully molded turrets, threading a leaf through a pointed twig. Morgan’s roused herself enough to lounge, rather than nap, and seems to be seriously debating the water, having shed her boots and her flannel shirt to expose her faded wife-beater and the tanned skin of her arms and chest. 

Holly flops down onto her towel, tugging him down with her, although it can’t really fit both of them, so she steals Tina’s towel instead, ignoring Tina’s complaints even as she tries to take a picture of a nearby seagull with her cellphone. “My hair’s going to drip all over you,” she says, and pulls out her bun to redo it, flipping her hair forward and then gathering it up into a tight ballerina’s knot. 

“I don’t mind,” he says, as she settles back down next to him. His hand is splayed over the length of her hip; he likes feeling her skin warm underneath his fingers. 

Morgan spares them a mildly disgusted look, then stands up with a quiet groan, peeling off her jeans and top to reveal the black bikini underneath it. Tina tries to take a picture of her; Morgan dodges out of the way and then lopes down to the water’s edge like a gazelle, wading in to her knees to let the waves crash against her. 

At one point Holly rolls away from him and onto her stomach to look at a magazine she brought; Nate studies the rivulets of water tracing their way down her narrow back, and resists the urge to follow them with his fingers. 

“What are you reading about?” he asks instead, too lazy to look at the glossy pages.

“Home renovations,” Holly murmurs. “They’re decorating a lake house.”

“Don’t get her started,” Tina scoffs, “Holly used to make us go to open houses on the weekends way up in the mountains when we were in high school. That was her idea of fun.”

“You liked the free food,” Holly points out. 

“I didn’t like driving up into hillbilly territory so we could walk through creepy hunting lodges!”

“They weren’t creepy, they just needed some sprucing up,” Holly says. “I’d love a house on a lake, someday.” Her face is still with a sort of contented dreaminess as she turns the page. “Look at this mud room, Tina.” 

Nate has a sudden vision of her on a back porch swing, coffee in hand, watching the sun come up over the water, her eyes dark and bright with reverence. There’s a cat curled up beside her- the pet she can’t have, per her landlord- and inside the kitchen just a few yards away, he is making tea on the stovetop, and someone’s child is stirring on the pull-out couch, pulling the quilt up over their eyes to block out the sunlight, yawning and grimacing. Someone’s child, he thinks. Tina’s or one of Verda’s daughters, of course. 

After the sand castle is finished and Morgan has returned from the water, miraculously already dry, as if she were a dog who just had to shake off her fur, Adam deems it time for his highly anticipated volleyball game. Nate has not played volleyball with Adam since 1991 and is somewhat dreading this return to form, because he looks a little too pleased as he draws a line in the sand with a long stick, to mark the nonexistent net. 

“We’ll do three on three,” Adam declares. “Nate and I will be captains-,”

“Shocker,” Morgan says under her breath.

“I want a vote on who gets to be captain, Captain!” Farah demands, hands on her hips. 

“Fine,” Adam says, frowning. “We’ll do a show of hands.”

Adam and Farah win in a landslide. Nate thinks it’s just as well. He always hates have to pick teams. Then follows a short arm wrestle to determine who gets first pick. Adam wins, although Farah puts up a very good fight, all but contorting herself into a pretzel in an attempt to overpower him. 

“Morgan,” Adam says immediately.

Morgan smirks, dusts off her shoulders. “Good choice.”

Farah wrinkles her nose. “Nate!”

Nate pats her on the shoulder as he joins her side.

Holly and Tina exchange affronted looks.

“Holly,” Adam says.

Tina gasps in mock shock. “Wow. I see how it is, Du Mortain-,”

“While your superior height would be beneficial, Officer Poname, I doubt your ability to effectively follow orders and work in a cohesive manner-,”

“Adam, she doesn’t need a thesis on it,” Holly points out. He clamps his mouth shut.

“I get it,” Tina grins. “I am a wild card, you know. Reckless. Unpredictable. Charismatic-,”

“Tina!” Farah chirps. 

“Thank you,” Tina gives a mock curtsy, and joins their team.

What follows is what Nate would describe as less of a light-hearted scrimmage between friends and more of all-out war. Adam spikes the ball so hard that it descends with the velocity of a meteor, Farah leaps up four feet into the air to return the volley, Tina just gapes, frozen, wide-eyed, Morgan all but shoves Holly out of the way to send it back to them, causing Nate to sharply chastise her, while Holly shouts back that she’s fine and he’d better not dare come over here unless he wants to admit defeat. In the end, they completely lose track of the score, Tina screams bloody murder when the ball nearly hits her in the head from one of Morgan’s over-eager spikes, Adam looks on with the grim pleasure of a commanding general watching the bloody tide of a battle turn, Holly drops down to one knee to stop the ball from hitting the ground, then curses, something Nate has only heard her do a few times, when it goes wide and into the sand. 

Farah declares her team’s victory at the end, which Adam stridently disagrees with, then looks affronted when she throws dried seaweed at him. 

“Oh, she’s really making him work for it,” Holly observes, watching Adam chase Farah along the beach; he’s very fast, but she’s much lighter, and is running barefoot so swiftly that her feet seem to skim the ground, rather than touch it. Nate watches him corner her at last, forcing her to retreat into the crashing waves; Farah squeals in shock at the cold, then is knocked off her feet when she slips in the surf. 

“Pick her up!” Morgan shouts at Adam, protective of Farah as ever, as Farah struggles to get back up, her small size working against her. 

Adam seems to repent and scoops her up into a fireman’s hold, to which Farah pounds her fists against his back, still strong enough to send them both tumbling to the ground. 

“Oh, now she’s dumping water on him,” Holly murmurs, “and he’s just lying there…”

“I’m never playing volleyball with any of you again,” Tina utters flatly, despite having not so much as touched the ball over the course of the match. She’s stolen Adam’s seat and is idly flipping through his book. “Why is he reading French poetry?”

“He’s a Romantic,” Nate says, “capital R.” He turns his attention to Holly, who is wetting her neck and collarbones with a cold can of soda from the cooler Tina brought. Her hands and wrists are bright red from repeated collisions with the volleyball. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m not hurt,” she says, rolling the can down her arms. “Just a little sore. Haven’t done that since uni.”

“Next time you should be on my team. Adam takes it so seriously, and Morgan’s rough.” Nate often feels the need to remind them that Holly, is, in fact, a human and therefore physically fragile in comparison, because even Adam can sometimes forget in the heat of a mission that she cannot take the sort of hits they can and just pop back up on her feet. She doesn't like him to comment on it, though, so he usually keeps those thoughts to himself and privately frets over her whenever she goes off with one of the others.

“Okay,” she says, indulgently. “Next time I’ll be on your team.”

The afternoon is stretching into the golden time before twilight. Adam and Farah return, Morgan tugs back on her clothes, languidly stretching for the benefit of a passing jogger. Tina nods off herself in Adam’s seat, lulled by the ocean air. He looks like he wants to wake her, but after a sharp glance from Holly, who sometimes, Nate thinks, acts like the older sister Adam never knew he needed to shake some sense into him, leaves her be. Farah takes several dozen photos of her sandcastle, and tries to make a case for why she should be allowed to take all the shells she’s collected home with her. Nate makes her pick three. 

Holly stays awake, but is clearly drowsy, and when they decide to pack up, leans against Nate’s arm, her bag in her other hand, her sundress tied around her waist. Morgan carries back the umbrella without complaint, and with some reservation, Adam hands the keys over to Morgan, while Tina sleepily calls shotgun for the front passenger seat. Morgan prefers to drive with the windows open a crack, and Nate watches the sun sink lower over the ocean as he puts on his seatbelt. Holly rests her warm head against his shoulder. He loops his arm around her. 

They drop Tina off first, and then make the short drive to Holly’s brownstone apartment block. 

“Don’t leave anything in this car,” Adam says. “They’re going to be very annoyed about all the sand.”

Holly pats him on the shoulder, then says, “I think you got a little burned on your face, Adam.”

He scoffs, then feels at his skin in surprise. 

Farah snickers over the muted sound of her music emanating through her glossy pink and turquoise headphones.

Nate walks Holly up to her door, as he has a million times before, and waits patiently as she roots in her bag for her keys, then unlocks it. The cool air of her apartment wafts out into the stuffy, narrow corridor. “Have a good night,” she says. “I’ll call you tomorrow?”

“Alright.” He kisses her, softly, then, without thinking, as she steps inside, “Good night. Love you.”

She pauses. His heart sinks, face heating up. Holly turns back around. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-,”

“I love you too,” she says, rising up on her tiptoes a little to say it, as if to force the words ever closer to him. They both fall silent, then- “Why don’t you stay. If you like. For a little while. We can watch a movie, or I was going to just order takeout- Unless you’re too tired-,”

He shakes his head, beaming. 

After three tries, he manages to call Morgan.

“What are you doing, taking a shower with her?” Morgan barks. “For fuck’s sake. We’ve been parked out here for ten minutes. I’m not getting a ticket.”

“I’m staying over,” he says.

“Typical.” He can hear Adam saying something in the background.

“Adam says remember that it’s your turn to clean the common room tomorrow, so don’t think you’re getting out of that.”

Another pause.

“And Farah says to have fun. But not too much fun.”

Nate smiles, and hangs up, clumsily. Holly has left him alone in her small living room. He takes off his shoes, and hears the shower running, thinks of Morgan’s face if she knew how prescient she’d been, and follows the sound, smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic came from a prompt on my [tumblr](https://dwellordream.tumblr.com/) where people sent in fic titles. My blog is mostly ASOIAF/HP but I am always accepting TWC prompts or asks!


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